Scaling Smart: How Opal Built a $10M ARR Business With Just 11 People
Welcome back to Scaling at Speed.
With all the public holidays and warm Spring weather, it's easy to lose focus, unless, of course, you're using Opal.
This month, we spoke to Kenneth Schlenker, Opal's founder, on his mission to solve our collective productivity crisis. Based in Paris, Opal is the world's number one attention management app, helping students and professionals drown out distractions from screens to deliver their best work.
In a candid conversation, Kenneth explains Opal's beginnings, the company's ethos, and crucially, details how a lean, hyper-efficient approach led to the business growing its revenues significantly with only a small, focused team of mission-driven colleagues.
Scroll down to learn Opal's secrets, discover where to meet our investors this month, and explore their expert analysis of the European tech ecosystem.
An excerpt from Kenneth's interview 👇
...Opal's origin story began in a sleepy village in the French Alps. “I come from a very small mountain village, surrounded by nature and calm,” Kenneth says. That early experience with balance, between the serenity of the outdoors and the intensity of digital life, would come to define Opal’s mission.
After an early career at Google, Kenneth saw both sides of the digital coin: opportunity and overexposure. “I got a very early glimpse into what happens when a company has a lot of data and how much power it has to influence and manipulate people; there's also a side of technology that isn't the brightest.”
That realization hit harder as the world became increasingly screen-bound, something that accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There is a productivity crisis; we see people struggling to process information, learn new things, concentrate on tasks, and that comes from an understanding that the tools we’re using are built by companies that build tools for distraction and not focus.”
Upcoming Events: Will we see you there?
Catch the Speedinvest team attending & speaking at leading conferences and exclusive events across EMEA. We would love to meet you!
- SuperVenture – [June 2-4, Berlin]: Europe's premier venture capital event, SuperVenture draws together the most influential figures in the global VC landscape. Our CEO & Managing Partner, Oliver Holle, will join a panel conversation with leading European VCs on how to differentiate your firm.
- Arctic15 — [June 4-5, Helsinki]: A cornerstone event in the Nordic startup scene, startups, investors, and ecosystem builders from across the region and world will be in Helsinki. Namratha Kothapalli from our Climate Tech & Industrial Tech team will be on stage discussing building sustainable computing power for AI.
- Hinterland of Things — [June 5, Bielefeld]: Our GP, Marie-Helene Ametsreiter, will attend and speak at Germany's pioneering event for the future of industry. She'll join a panel conversation discussing the state of European VC.
- South Summit – [June 4-6, Madrid]: Groundbreaking startups from Southern Europe and Latin America will meet with top-tier investors and corporations in Madrid. Our CEO & Managing Partner, Oliver Holle, will be on stage with the founder of our portfolio company, Cobee, to discuss their recent acquisition.
- HLTH Europe – [June 16-19, Amsterdam]: Andrea Zitna, Estelle Botbol, Daria Gherghelas, and Hendrik Steenfadt from our Health & Bio team will be on stage and hosting & attending side events throughout Europe's largest conference focused on the healthcare industry.
👉 Check out future events we'll be attending on our blog.
From the Investors' Desk
From deep sector expertise to our take on the future of tech and venture capital in Europe, here are some of our recent musings from social media.
Our GP, Andreas Schwarzenbrunner, recently kicked off Speedinvest's latest initiative, Build in Europe. For too long, policymakers and investors have identified the problems with European tech but haven't proposed solutions. On our blog and LinkedIn, Andreas outlines the three key areas hindering European innovation as we look to create a stronger future for the continent.
Speedinvest CEO & Managing Partner, Oliver Holle, delivered a passionate keynote at the EUVC Summit in London on Europe's counter-offensive to the US tech agenda. Oliver called for European tech to forge new alliances and for VC to consolidate and grow, rather than further fragment. You can read more about his speech on Tech.eu.
GP Markus Lang joined a Power Session hosted by accelerator VentureCake and shared his personal experience on both sides of the pitching process, as an investor and former operator. His insights include timing in deals, pitch decks, AI (obviously), and the power of teams. Read the key takeaways here.
👉 What else we're reading:
OpenAI chief Sam Altman: ‘This is genius-level intelligence’ - FT
Silicon Valley Is Coming for the Pentagon's $1 Trillion Budget - Bloomberg
Singapore’s Vision for AI Safety Bridges the US-China Divide - Wired
Thanks for reading — see you next month,
Have feedback, suggestions, or topics you'd like us to dive into? Email us at press@speedinvest.com.